Advocates for Youth

2000 M Street, NWWashington, DC 20036

Every hour of every day, 100 young people in the U.S. become pregnant, 425 contract a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and two contract HIV. Globally, almost 6,000 young people ages 15-24 are infected with HIV every day. Despite this data, over the past decade, federal and state governments have spent over $1.5 billion on abstinence-only education programs that censor information about condoms, birth control, and emergency contraception.

Advocates for Youth works to shift the current societal paradigm of adolescent sexuality away from a negative emphasis on fear and ignorance and towards the acceptance of sexuality as healthy and normal. Advocates is committed to promoting the values of Rights, Respect, and Responsibility. Young people have the right to accurate and complete sexual health information and services; they deserve to be treated with respect; and society has the responsibility to provide youth with the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health so that they can protect themselves from too-early childbearing and sexually transmitted infections such as HIV.